Egypt weighs next steps after Ethiopia completes second filling of Nile Dam
Ethiopia announced the completion of the second filling phase of the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
CAIRO — The state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation announced July 19 the completion of the second-phase filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which it is building on the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the Nile River.
Egypt and Sudan have been locked in a decades long dispute with Ethiopia over the dam, amid its insistence to fill the dam’s reservoir without reaching a binding agreement with its downstream neighbors.
Former Egyptian Minister of Irrigation Mohammed Nasr Allam told Al-Monitor that Egypt is closely following up on all developments related to the GERD crisis and it is aware of all steps taken in this regard. He said that Ethiopia failed to achieve its goal to generate electricity through the second filling, explaining that it had already failed during the first filling last year due to technical and other problems in the construction of the dam
Allam said that Ethiopia has not stored enough water to protect the dam from any possible military action.
